Speaker 1: 0:00

Cut the tie to anything holding you back from success. Welcome to the Cut the Tie podcast. Hi, I'm your host, thomas Helfrich, and in each episode, we bring you real entrepreneurs that really overcame challenges on their journey to become successful. We look at the impact, the moment, how it affected everything in their lives. Follow us on Apple, spotify and YouTube. Now let's meet our guest on Cut the Tie podcast. Hey, welcome to Never Been Promoted. Hi, I'm your host, thomas Helfer. Thank you for joining in today.

Speaker 1: 0:29

We're on a mission, as always, to cut the tie to everything holding us back as entrepreneurs. I bring on entrepreneurs, the everyday entrepreneur, just like you. Maybe you're still stuck in the corporate world and you're trying to break out and you don't know if you can do it, or you're just afraid to make the leap, or you haven't set yourself up financially right to do it. Learn from these guests, our guests, because they've done it, they're doing it and that is the step. To become an entrepreneur is to learn something every day. The atomic habits 1%. Move forward, move forward, and so if you can get something from our guests today, that's the idea. Now our one call to action really is just hit the follow button, the follow on Spotify or Apple. It's a very simple thing to do. We do about five shows a week we release and we shoot them all live on YouTube ahead of time. So if you want to see them live a few months before they come on the podcast, you have to hit that subscribe button. I'm not charging for that either. It's free, it's all free.

Speaker 1: 1:20

Our guest today is John Hall. We're going to talk about a lot of cool topics around coaching and transforming leaders into game changers and overcoming things in your life to become great. John and I were doing a little talking off camera here and I am super excited to have some of these conversations with him, mostly because this is why I started the show. I get free consulting. It's great, listen. If you want free consulting, do a podcast. Bring people on that know more than you and learn, learn, learn, learn, learn. It's great. All right, john, oh yeah, last thing Hit the smash button on that follow. Ok, thanks people. John, how are you? Hey Thomas, great to be here. I really appreciate you getting on here today.

Speaker 1: 1:58

One of the things I need to tie is I am addicted to nasal spray. I'm holding this up for you listening, but I think this is like the season. This is usually if I get sick. This is the season for me to do it. It's like January to March, and it usually corresponds with me stopping to take my vitamin C pills. So, costco, this year we bought like $45 million worth of them. Like a pallet just showed up, but you were staying off here. You just got first of all, you just coming off the flu right Last week?

Speaker 2: 2:27

Yeah, exactly, and I mean I'm rarely ever sick and normally cruise right through things. So this was a. This was a tough one, but I'm committed not to cough or sniffle during the show. That's my. It's my commitment, like the big goal here is that's what I'm going to do, just hit the mute button.

Speaker 1: 2:43

There'll be plenty of times I'll, uh, I'll be hitting the mute button to cough or sneeze or take a drink or something. Um, I say that because you know, uh, you, you. That's one thing in like life, like a simple thing everyone needs to get over is cold, right. Sometimes, though, as we look at uh, uh, entrepreneurship in the businesses and we'll get into yours here just really quickly here, but, uh, it's kind of like a cold. You expect to get over a cold, and when you're sick, right, the guy who has his health has a million dreams. The guy who does not has but one. But we don't think about that and stuff that we kind of bury away or things we've been taught or nurtured. And so the conversation today around how do you become like a manager, to a leader, to something game changing is sometimes fundamental to what we're about to speak about, which is how do you release yourself of beliefs and entitlements and things in your life that's holding you back.

Speaker 1: 3:33

So, that being said, john, introduce yourself, jump ahead in the movie. Give me, give me the highlight. I just sat down, I've already eaten half. Who am I kidding? I've already eaten my entire popcorn and it's not even started. It's how every movie goes for me. And then I'm like oh, I got to go to the bathroom. Do I miss the opening? No, you don't miss the opening, because that's the. That's the, that's the moment we're going to build towards.

Speaker 2: 3:52

So give me the moment we're building towards, and and then let's back up into your story a little bit. Yeah, absolutely so. You know this. I was in a tech career for 25 years, specialized in parachuting in and troubleshooting areas turning them around. It started with technology, but we all know technology doesn't behave. It's the people, it's the process, the procedure and on a personal level. So this is kind of the business career I'm doing this, I'm parachuting in, I'm doing these transformations.

Speaker 2: 4:22

It looks fantastic, but on a personal level, I was going through a in the middle of a deeply abusive relationship and had been in there for 25 years, and so when the kids went to college and things just fell apart, I couldn't hold it together anymore with everything that was going on. I am like, okay, what the heck happened? How do I make sure this never happens again? And as I started to go on that discovery and I started to understand embodiment, I started to understand more about breath, I understand somatic response and how our body is tied to our mindset and our beliefs and our ability to stay focused, and eventually got to a point that I'm like you know what this is really transformational, not just for myself, to allow me to set my feet on the ground, but to be able to take this out to others as well.

Speaker 2: 5:06

So that's really been my focus is sharing what I have learned and the insights I've gained and that intuition, as well as the ability to use these tools, the BPM framework, to just completely transform clients that I work with. But it came out of my own personal journey and completely different thing. You know, I never imagined as a tech guy I was going to be in a woo-woo spiritual breath, work, intuitive guidance kind of space, Right. I mean, that was that, was not that nowhere. Was that on the uh, on the bingo card, Right?

Speaker 1: 5:37

I, uh, I snorted because, like you know, I'm on a bit of a faith journey and like, listen, everyone listening, don't turn off, I'm not going to show up or I don't care, if you actually don't care if you have you follow Jesus or Buddha or whoever Buddhism religion, but the point is I found my own, it helps me, whatever it is. And, um, you know, and I still have all my doubts, but the truth is I'm actually considering starting a podcast called faith and entrepreneurship, because I'm so interested in these miracles people talk about and I'm still like I think they're bullshit sometimes and but yet I meet the person. I go. This guy's broke. It's not like he's making hand over fist exploiting of miracle. He's broke trying to help other people find that miracle. I'm like and it's not even like relative broke.

Speaker 1: 6:19

He like these people like we're making money and they're like this, like hit me. So I'm like if you were making money I'd call bullshit, but you're like broke, still doing it, you cost you everything anyway. He's like no, no, no.

Speaker 2: 6:32

But it's a it's an amazing thing because I mean what a part of what part of my journey of ending that getting out of that abusive relationship was. Literally, I took a two by four to the back of my I have 13 stitches on the back of my head.

Speaker 1: 6:46

Oh, you legitimately had a two-by-four in the back of your head.

Speaker 2: 6:48

Legitimately went down, hit the ground.

Speaker 1: 6:51

13 stitches from busting my head open One second. That's the opening scene in the movie. You're walking along, I'm a tech consultant. Hey, John, he's like you have the coffee and and then he walks in the parking lot blank. Who hits you with a two by four?

Speaker 2: 7:06

Well, it was my own doing. It was, I guess, gravity would be the best thing, because I passed out and went down, but it started a series of events that absolutely I can see God's hand in all of it, allowing me to get from where I was to where I am today, opening up the doors that have been open. I mean, it's when you start to dig in that space and you start to look at it from a relational standpoint and you start to pause and you start to look at life differently, you begin to see threads that you simply don't see at any other point in time, and you begin to see something that's woven together that is far deeper than you can ever dream or imagine, and that is the beauty that comes out of that.

Speaker 1: 7:47

Are we? Are we just cockroaches, in your opinion? Like we look at cockroaches, they don't understand shit, but yet they're hard to kill, and especially little bastards that get in your drain. You're like how do you even get there? Why are you?

Speaker 2: 7:59

you can't be. I live in Florida. I live in Florida, Ours are not. I'm in Atlanta, right? So there's the Palmetto, the Palmetto bugs.

Speaker 1: 8:05

It's a freaking cockroach. I don't care what you say, those fly.

Speaker 2: 8:08

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:10

Flying cockroach.

Speaker 2: 8:12

That makes it so much more what I really teach is being able to build in pause, being able to build a reflection, because otherwise we do. We just scurry around and we completely ignore what we're meant, what we're meant to do, what we're capable of doing right. We just get trapped in the loops of limiting beliefs and we just stay in that little cockroach treadmill.

Speaker 1: 8:40

Think about it, right. A dog doesn't like if it has like an issue, it just, it just is being right. And we don't know that dog's perspective, that it thinks it's the smartest thing on the planet relative to everything it sees or not, but it also doesn't have a clue. There's a dog in China because it doesn't know about China, right, and it just lives its life there. And I think to some degree we are doing the exact same thing without realizing it. We just have more perspective of the immediate world around us, which is still where that dog lives. So that dog may know the house and neighborhood, can see the sky, and doesn't quite understand it. But we get out and we're like, oh, we get all this, we see everything, we've been to space, but we don't. We don't know anymore. We don't know the metaphysical or anything past, where you are or what. We're a soul.

Speaker 2: 9:20

Exactly, one of the biggest things that I have really been teaching is understanding the impact that our body and our emotions have as well, because we like to really think that we're these very logical creatures and we just happen to have fits of logic.

Speaker 2: 9:33

And when we begin to realize, like the impact of the body we're in the impact of the emotions that we have when we begin to lean into that as opposed to fighting it. It's a game changer in our ability to handle chaos, stress, adversity and tap into peace, awareness, creativity far more than we can otherwise.

Speaker 1: 10:02

Now listen. One of my best corporate skills was I could wreck any meeting if allowed to. It was mostly because I was never prepared for meetings, so I would find ways to get off topic and then, oh, you know what, we just don't have enough time to present that. Let's do that next week and just never schedule that meeting ever. So, that being said, I want to come back to your story. You were getting out of an abusive relationship. If you can't, because there's a lot of people who listen to this, a lot of thousands of entrepreneurs I've met and interviewed that is a very common theme that they're out of some relationship that was no longer working. I don't want to call it abusive. Yours sounds probably because you described it in a way that was a little bit further. Do you mind diving into that, the identification of it, how the kids played in a little bit?

Speaker 2: 10:43

And when you were just like no more, it's my life. Yeah, no more, I'm, I'm, it's my life. Yeah, you know, one of the one of the biggest things that I think people really need to be aware of is the impact that childhood has and your childhood absolutely has in your identification of relationships, your definition of relationships, your definition of self-worth. All these limiting beliefs that we pick up, and we literally, I call it, they're like negative pearls, right, because we take these little beliefs that have been given to us as a child or in our youth and we don't have the capacity to actually challenge them, so we just accept them and we wrap these layers of you know basically why we think they're true around the beginning again and again, to where we just get totally used to this pearl being in our life. Right, it's like the way pearls form is that little irritant and it gets the layers around it and pretty soon oyster doesn't even recognize it's there.

Speaker 1: 11:36

But a pearl has value. I'd call it the tag on the back of your t-shirt. You didn't know you could rip off Because in case you rip it off your t-shirt. You didn't know you could rip off because in case you rip it off, you ruin the t-shirt.

Speaker 2: 11:47

Fine, just sew it back up, but well and it's like terrible.

Speaker 1: 11:48

I think it's always there. Why is that there? I just leave it because I bought it that way, came that way, yeah, yeah, but there's a value when you get.

Speaker 2: 11:55

There is a, there's a value when you get to the bottom of this. But the thing is you've got to dissolve it. You've got to get through it because otherwise you carry this thing around. You carry these beliefs around and you do not challenge them, and so you start to build your life around these unchallenged beliefs and they impact you. So one of my beliefs my parents got divorced when I was young and I had a very chaotic childhood. We moved a lot, a lot of other things that were going on in there. I love my parents. I have a great relationship with my parents. I have a great relationship with my parents.

Speaker 2: 12:22

But it was a lot of processing to get through that because the chaos that kind of got introduced in through the divorce created a lot of negative beliefs that I carried forward with me and I carried that right forward into relationship, thinking that, okay, a relationship is all about how much I can do. Right. Codependency flares up. I'm like how much can I put into the relationship? And, of course, a codependent person attracts another type of person. And it created a perfect dynamic that, even though I was doing incredibly well I was a senior VP before I was 30 in the corporate role, I did incredibly well in turning around areas and transforming them.

Speaker 2: 12:59

The reality is that I had this chaos at home that I would go to and it was a recreation of childhood and it was draining a tremendous amount of energy and creativity and life out of me because, basically, work was the outlet where I was creative and then, instead of it being able to come home and recharge, it was just more chaos and a totally different dynamic that was there and this is one of the things that is so surprising is people. We build up a tolerance for it. It's like. It's like that tag on the t-shirt like you described right, like at some point we just zoned it out and we don't think about the impact we have. So it's. It's like when you get in and you scrub all this stuff off, it's like pulling all the barnacles off a boat and you're like holy crap, I didn't know I could. I didn't know I could. My boat could perform like this. I didn't know it was so easy to go sail Right.

Speaker 1: 13:48

Getting into the apparel analogy, when you put on your new pair of socks after getting rid of the old pair of socks that irritated you too much, did it feel as good as you thought it would?

Speaker 2: 13:57

It is. It's funny because I'm thinking I'm going to put new socks on this morning. I'm like, oh, these feel really tight. I'm not used to these, these aren't as comfortable, Right. So like we do an experience, but it is. It's like you. You get into things with new eyes and you go, Holy crap, this is like it totally resets. It totally resets when you get in and dissolve some of these limiting beliefs and you get a chance to come at it from a different angle than you've been just used to living. You thought that was reality.

Speaker 1: 14:26

It's interesting. So in like, in any relationship and I struggle with this too is you have your own ways. You are and you grow up with your wife and everything else, and we have plenty of issues that we try to deal with and I and I look at and in any of the ones you have two different kinds of people. My wife is, like you know, process driven, completely non ADHD. Like you know, process driven, completely non-adhd. Like you know, in this year I'm like the thing I'm going to look at is I'm going to look at adult adhd, of how I can just trim off 10 of that superpower to be more focused and I but I tell you this because I think things like that impact relationship.

Speaker 1: 14:57

I think, um, other things like you're, you know, for men it might be their testosterone's low. It impacts relationship and and these, like whatever it is, did you ever look back in your relationship and go, man, if I had done this mindfulness stuff earlier, would it helped your relationship? Would you have it still helps you no matter what, but does it? Would it help your relationship enough to like, maybe I wouldn't have been in that spot if you, but you didn't know until you're there. But maybe talk about the reflective moments of oh God, I could have done that way better.

Speaker 2: 15:24

Yeah, absolutely. I mean that that and that is. That is one of the things that uh was was the saying an unreflective life is not worth living, and so I was. Absolutely it is. It's a tough one to hear, but that was the reality. I was in an unreflective life for a long period of time. I just didn't know any better. I was in the routines of going to church and going to work and doing all the things that appeared to be the right thing, but I wasn't in that mode to really be able to reflect, and what had happened was I had built up right again this Pearl concept.

Speaker 2: 15:57

We defend our beliefs right, we get to keep the beliefs that we fight for, and so we do that. Just naturally, we defend these beliefs of well, I've got to really work hard to be in a relationship, or I don't quite have the self, you know the value, uh, as someone else might have. So I've got to. I you know I don't really deserve to be treated well or I deserve to be treated this way, and so we just we build up all these beliefs, we self-reinforce them, and so without the ability to step back and look at them. And again, I think that it's fascinating because we have an absolute need to build our ability to focus and reflect.

Speaker 2: 16:37

I have an analogy of going through the woods with with my nephew and we were. We've been told that he was like eight or nine at the time and we've been told there was a rabid fox in the neighborhood. So we go out for a walk in the night. We made the mistake of giving him the flashlight and that flashlight is just going all over the place. I mean, it's going like in the ditch and the trees behind us and it made it impossible to walk because this flashlight is just going all around the world.

Speaker 2: 17:03

We finally had to take the the flashlight from him, like put it on the path and unless there's something that we actually hear, that we are concerned about, we're keeping it on the path and our reflection is absolutely built with the ability to refocus our mind and be able to look at our life and say what is going on. Instead of just jerking all around the place, we're focused on an area and saying you know, does this make sense? You know what else could be different here? But we're also living in a time where we are completely under assault. Right, the amount of time that we can go most people can go without picking up their phone scrolling right. It's almost like an addiction to just go get the little hit of dopamine. Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1: 17:43

Exactly so. The, the, the, the very life that we live in.

Speaker 2: 17:50

We are under assault from our ability to focus at a time that we need to focus even more but it is that ability to reflect? Sorry, Thomas, go ahead.

Speaker 1: 17:58

No, no, I stepped on you. We had just a tiny delay, so I'm sorry if I do that. The the reflection piece is, it's funny. So I, like I said I I started this podcast so I can get. I couldn't afford, uh, coaches, all the ones I needed, so I just like let's just put them on for an hour and I'll steal time and just and extrapolate whatever they, whatever they've done, um, I, I will tell the reflective life I have certainly not lived in, probably until the last till covid.

Speaker 1: 18:22

I put so much identity into the work and the travel and things I did. You know, the show's called never been promoted, because I've never been promoted. Um, but I mean, but I, I advanced, I I hit my career 42 chief innovation officer, a billion dollar company. Right, like I, you know how it is. You feel I'm there and you get there and you're like money's great, but this is not what I want, yeah, and you feel it. But you're like, oh, no, I'm pushing that shit way down because this is making some good money, but you, you can't outlast. The people see that for a while. Like, you're just not. If you're not all corporate, you're not into the whatever that is you, you burn out, and if you have things at home going on then you, then you have another candle burning right at you.

Speaker 1: 19:01

But what I never did was reflect back on. I just kind of kept moving eyes forward, move forward, move forward, move forward. And when I start reflecting and I'm in your and if you're somebody like me who doesn't really want to share, doesn't never has, as I'd rather just not talk about it and you, you start changing these beliefs. You're not very good at sharing and that creates problems. But what I started feeling out is I no longer want to believe some things that I've been taught I no longer want to believe. I grew up that the church kind of screwed us over when we my parents went through a bankruptcy and we stopped going and I was so happy because now Sundays were fishing and fun and not getting yelled at and kicked out of church class every freaking week, right, and then I didn't get the cookies of which I was promised, right. Truly a trauma.

Speaker 1: 19:44

But the point is I no longer want to believe some of the things I believe about, like mental wellness, of, of, of looking at men, looking at you know, like I said, I talk about testosterone like looking at the things you need to go do for that and those things. I was always been like, oh men, don't do that bullshit like. I'm starting to look at faith differently. So I guess my point is the reflective mind. When it happens, and I would love to hear your describe. For me it was very emotional and very hard and I still I'm newer in it. I don't like it To be clear. I don't like the reflective piece, but I find the benefit once I get through the uncomfortableness of what I don't like. What is your kind of take on that? Because we're keeping it in the framework of becoming a leader and game changer. You got to change your game to be able to do that and and exactly and this has been?

Speaker 2: 20:28

I'll tell you it's been. This is part of what I built the bpm framework, the breath physiology mindset and breath has been so powerful in, because I've introduced breath three different ways in the way that I've been learning how to incorporate this, and it started through kind of my own practice and then also going through a training program on this where I just worked on myself to really do a lot of this. But the first step has been learning to connect with my emotions, right. So as a guy, that is very you know, I like to joke that we have four main emotions as a guy. It's like hungry, horny, pumped and pissed. Right, those are our four basic motions that we have as a guy. We tend to run off of those four and not go any deeper, right.

Speaker 1: 21:09

I think there's one around. Leave me alone. I need a minute. There you go Well.

Speaker 2: 21:13

I'll come up with that one. I'll fit it into. There's a fifth. There we go.

Speaker 1: 21:16

There's a fifth, called solitude. Can everyone just please be quiet?

Speaker 2: 21:19

That's it.

Speaker 1: 21:20

I'm okay with an eight hour car ride, no noise. Just to be clear. I can just drive through and be like not a sound, A hundred percent.

Speaker 2: 21:27

But being able to tap into that right. Being able to tap in and go, wow, there's more than these base emotions, right, let me start unraveling this, let me allow this to come up. And so that has been the first part, the tactical part, of just learning how to tap into stability, learn how to kind of reuse your breath to ground, to feel what's going through, not bottle it up or suppress it, but be able to tap into it as kind of a warning sign to say what is going on, what do I need to do about this, what's bothering me, what is setting me off at this moment? Right. And then the second piece is the strategic piece, where you're using breathwork to expand your ability to handle chaos, adversity, handle more emotion, without going into one area or another.

Speaker 2: 22:09

But what's really powerful and you were talking about this a little earlier is when you get to those limiting beliefs and you go, wow, I can see where there's really upset me, because there's something there that I believe I shouldn't pass my parents in financial ability, right.

Speaker 2: 22:26

Or if I succeed financially, I'm going to lose the friends that I have. Or if I stop chasing this financial success, wow, this thing's going to pop up over here that I've been avoiding for 20 years around my own identity and my own belief and my value in relationship, right Around my own identity and my own belief and my value in relationship Right. So that's the third part, where it's like getting using breath, work in like an hour long practice to actually get in and get to the operating system level and start taking a whack at some of these operating systems. I call it like operating system level limiting beliefs and it's amazing that when you get to them and you are aware of them and you you just let them go how quickly these things dissolve. It is not like, oh, I've got all this work to do to overcome my limiting beliefs, I've got to beat them down and challenge them. It's, it's literally awareness and these things dissolve the moment you make the decision that it's like, wow, I don't want to carry this anymore, and it is literally that fast.

Speaker 1: 23:24

What do you, what's your take on the I mean some of the feelings you have, like especially in a relationship right, where one person's annoyed by the other and it goes both ways and you're trying to make changes in a way to like maybe receive things, but it's like why am I the broken one? Like it's annoying you but it doesn't annoy me what I do. And so the idea, the change of the perspective, I think really has to be because you want it, not because someone else thinks you should be. That's right.

Speaker 2: 23:54

These have got to be driven from your own identity. There was what I love and this is part of being a tech geek for 25 years is when someone tells me something, I'm like I will prove it. Like actually tell me. So there was a study done years ago and they they called it the chocolate cake study, and what they basically did is they did a study where they said you know, one group of people came in and said well, I can't eat chocolate cake, I'm on a diet, I'm trying to lose weight. You know, they were offered chocolate cake and their answer was I can't eat chocolate cake. And this was the group that was using their willpower to overcome what they were facing right. So I'm going to change because I believe it's the best thing to right. I'm going to change for whatever reason, but not because of my identity. The second group was based on identity. So it's like well, I don't eat chocolate cake, like I only eat healthy food I'm a non-chocolate cake eater.

Speaker 2: 24:46

Exactly Like it was literally their identity, and there was a 50% increase in the ability to eat healthy when it was part of the identity rather than willpower. And then there's all kinds of other science that shows willpower like it drains our ability to make critical decisions. So we're constantly trying to fight who we think we are and use our willpower to overcome it we make crappy decisions, right, we do.

Speaker 1: 25:14

And I stopped drinking about 18 months ago after listening to Alan Carr's book how to drink, quit drinking, drinking, how to quit easy or something, whatever it is. He has been on in those principles. What described, I think um, it might be his, because his one about, I guess, eating and smoking is is the same idea that you're reframing the meaning you have to something and and what it means to you. Uh, and you know I I like, just for example, about food. Right now I'm like every day I'm like I know I'm overeating. Right now I don't care, eat it right. And you're like I need to reframe that a bit, because the willpower of like I'm gonna say 1800 calories only lasts like two weeks. And then I'm like, screw this, and it never works. I can give you 40 plus years of doing right, it's like yeah yeah and and.

Speaker 1: 25:54

but then you're like, do I even care? Like I'm not overweight, I'm just trying to get a body image that I, my body, this isn't. You know, I get what you're and I think that's so powerful because you but in your framework, with breathing and other things, maybe talk about how you go and talk about your framework a little bit like set that up a little bit Um, and then then tie it to the, the ID, right To the, the, the, who you are and how that kind of transforms like how does your framework, what is your framework and how does it take me to me being about myself and identity of rest so than willpower.

Speaker 2: 26:23

Yeah, a hundred percent. So you know again, the framework is is BPM, breath, physiology, mindset? And it started as a way, when I was thinking about just myself getting stressed, clients getting stressed, your heart rate starts to go up. It's like, okay, well, what, what, what can I do with everything I've learned to be able to calm down more quickly, to ground, to refocus more quickly, because we're always going through periods of stress, right, it's just part of the life we live in. And so that framework came out of a recognition that we have an evolutionary response to stress. Right, as I shared earlier, we'd like to think we're logical beings who sometimes have fits of emotion, but we're emotional beings that sometimes have fits of logic. And so this starts with an understanding of biology, the evolutionary response that we have.

Speaker 2: 27:10

To stress. It starts with the breath and breathing a certain way that signals from our body to our brain to calm down. It releases the hijack that happens where our kind of logic center, our wise center, the prefrontal cortex, goes offline in stress when we need it most because this very basic reptilian brain, the amygdala, hijacks everything and takes over going. You're not safe, I got to step in. So breath is that first layer. We use breath in a way to signal the body to relax.

Speaker 2: 27:40

Physiology's next. There's different physiology cues that we can do to give a signal of safety, give a signal of calm. So that's next. And then, by the time we've sent these two signals from the body to the brain, we release this hijack. Prefrontal cortex comes back on and we are able to be able to start thinking differently, see opportunities differently. Instead of feeling like it's chaos and everything's going to collapse, we're able to look at it and say, oh, I see an opportunity here, there's a way out here. So it's in that situation. But then I build on that with different layers to expand strategically and also to be able to work at that, that operating system level, all based on the same concepts.

Speaker 1: 28:23

Does that fall? So let's talk about your business a little bit, just because I think there's a, would it fall in kind of coaching or mentorship.

Speaker 2: 28:33

How does it? How do you? How do you? How do you identify? I identify as a coach, thomas. Yeah, it absolutely is. You know, I've heard different things that you need to call a mentor. You need to call it this. Look, at the end of the day, I'm coming along as a guide with you. I'm going to use my experience, we're going to figure out what is it that you want to achieve. We're going to do a diagnostic and understand what's holding you back in the space and we're going to go. I am journeying alongside of you as a guide to get you from point A to point B. That's how it works.

Speaker 1: 29:00

Do you ever get into the you know the hammer nail situation where you're looking at it's going I could be, I'm a hammer, that's what you do and I like I don't want to see them as a nail because they're not. And you like, if you've gotten that spot where, like they don't need what I have, they actually need something else Like does that happen when you're in your practice?

Speaker 2: 29:19

That has been, that has been my own practice to move through that, because when I first started coaching, that was absolutely. It was like oh well, it's so clear to me, this is what you need to do, this is how we're going to go attack $1,000.

Speaker 1: 29:28

90 days. Now you're fixed.

Speaker 2: 29:30

That's right, we're going to take care of this right away. And so I've actually been doing a lot of work recently with surrender and exploring the word surrender. And surrender is really interesting because it is like a dirty word. You know, if you tell most entrepreneurs that the key to their success is surrender, you'll be like yep, you know, let me give you a couple of hands and tell you what to do.

Speaker 1: 29:52

We're not talking about split end song right From the uh no, exactly Exactly. Covered by pro jam, the only reason I know it anyway.

Speaker 2: 29:58

There you go, and, and so what I've been looking at? Right, there's the type of surrender where life just has to beat the stew out of us and we just give up. Right, there's a surrender of just OK, I am completely worn out, I'm completely done, there's nothing I can do. And that's the surrender that most of us grew up with. We believe we just have to fight through, never give up, never surrender.

Speaker 2: 30:28

But there is another form of surrender that comes from reflection and is the ability to surrender into the reality of what is. It comes from a calmness and a stillness. It comes from an ability to see that God your own personal belief right, for me it's God, but it could be the universe, whatever you believe in, is seeking for your success, that it is looking for the ultimate good in what you can achieve. You have a purpose and you're there to live it. And so what you're doing with surrender is you're starting to use this quietness, this calmness, to go. What is? What do I need to let go? Where am I holding onto things that aren't mine? And when it comes up that I know where to focus. I am going to move forward with all my focus, all my power, all my strength in the direction that I know is right and move forward in a way as opposed to just fighting everything until I get so beat down. There's only one path left.

Speaker 1: 31:16

So so go back to your two by four. How did that come back to that story? I'm unconscious of those who have us who are like looking for the tieback. They never talked about the two by four. Take me through that a bit, cause it sounds like you got hit like you had. You had a different kind of surrender path, but you explain, yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:33

Yeah, I'd had a couple, a couple of health things. Just, you know, genetically I picked up some, some high blood. I'll get blood sugar spikes. So if I get stressed, if you want to really knock me out, like give me a donut and give me something really stressful, so my, my insulin will spike and I'll. You know, I go through that. I've managed it. I've managed it for another 15 years since this has happened.

Speaker 2: 31:54

But that one day, for whatever happened, right, and it would manifest as, as I actually had passed out a couple of times before I understood what was going on with my body, because I would.

Speaker 2: 32:03

I went up to give a speech one time and I had a what I thought was healthy with a fruit smoothie I'm in about in front of 500 people fruit smoothie, of course and then the adrenaline of giving a speech in front of 500 people, my, uh, my insulin went up and I passed out. Like I wake up and there's paramedics over me and I'm like what the heck is going on, like I literally felt like my system's rebooting and I had avoided it, like I'd managed this. I learned how to manage it with diet and some other practices and I had not had it for five, 10 years and then one day it just came up with a situation at home that I'm getting screamed at it's in the morning, I'm trying to make coffee and all and screamed at it's in the morning I'm trying to make coffee and all of a sudden boom down. I go and I come to with coffee grounds and water everywhere no paramedics this time, mind you, there was there there was.

Speaker 2: 32:50

They weren't there yet. There weren't there yet. But I look over and I see, I mean, I literally see blood out of the corner of my eye on the tile and I'm like, oh my gosh. And so, you know, got paramedics there and they strapped me to the backboard because they weren't sure what was going on. Take me into the hospital. But it started up a series of events of, basically, awareness. It was getting out of that situation and getting a different perspective. Being in the hospital room and then being outside of it with a support network that I started to see what was going on differently and going wait a second like this is not a healthy situation. I'm in right, this is not a good situation.

Speaker 1: 33:30

It was one of the realizations I wonder. I'm trying, I try to be, I'm trying to be more empathetic and I'm trying to be you here in the hospital. I probably hadn't gone to the hospital very many times since that moment.

Speaker 2: 33:45

And did you feel peace, that no one was yelling at you in that hospital? Yes and no. This is the amazing thing. So this is the. This is the thing that I try to get people to understand about childhood PTSD and um, growing up in a very chaotic childhood. It rewires your brain. Your brain works differently, so you become used to chaos. You become used to feeling like you have to be on a treadmill, that a relationship has to be hard, that you have to constantly be chasing something, and so what is really interesting about people that are in abusive situations when they get out of those is you hear about Stockholm syndrome.

Speaker 2: 34:20

Like you are like this feels odd, this feels weird. I'm not plugged into. You know, my fingers aren't holding onto the live wire anymore and it doesn't feel real that I can be in this space, right? So one of the things that you have to learn how to do is examine and reset and go wow, there's a baseline, a piece that feels completely different than what I've been used to. It'd be beautiful to say, yeah, you know, one day out of the hospital and you're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I was in this, but you're not. You're like, oh my gosh, what's going on? I need to get back. I need to. You know, there's this franticness that comes about and it is literally all these, all these patterns we learn as childhood that we carry forward into our, into our relationships, and our life.

Speaker 1: 35:02

You just confirmed I'm messing my kids up. Thanks, appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 35:06

We are all messing our kids up. I will just, I'll just share that.

Speaker 1: 35:09

Just matter what you do. Yeah Well, but you don't, but you can. You can argue faith, destiny, you're wiring the way there's. They were intended to be wired.

Speaker 2: 35:17

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 35:18

Until they're not.

Speaker 2: 35:20

I think that's where we do. You know, one of the things I came to realize and I was angry with my mom for a very long time. My mom grew up in a very abusive childhood, like alcoholic parents, very difficult situation, and I was very upset with her because of what I went through as a child and, you know, blamed her for a lot of this. And I realized one day. The analogy that came across to me is I thought you know if for a lot of this, and I realized one day. The analogy that came across to me is I thought you know, if my grandparents were across the street shooting into my house, into my bedroom, and my mom came down and she wrapped her body around me and she stopped 80% of the bullets coming in and hitting me, would I be angry with her that 20% got through or would I be like you're a hero for stopping what you did? That happened in the generation before you?

Speaker 1: 36:08

Yeah, I mean it's a good way to look at it, but your perspective is as a kid, I'm getting hit by a lot of bullets.

Speaker 2: 36:16

Not really, I agree.

Speaker 1: 36:19

There's 80 more that are going to hit you. You only got it by 20. And you survived, that's right. None went to your head too much, uh in your uh. It's funny.

Speaker 1: 36:29

So last year you know, every year I kind of do things and last year I read some books, uh around mindfulness and the science of mindfulness as a harvard lecture series, um, and I had a really good awakening of of just to me it was a realization that that buddhism or whatever else, it's not a religion, everybody, it's just a way of living, just to be clear. But they studied the mind-body connection for like thousands of years, why they didn't have phones, they barely had light and they had like eight books. And that's what they did. They studied about life and nature and how it's all connected And's what they committed their lives to. And that's to us that sounds incredibly boring and wasteful, but the truth is they had 2 000 minds, the 2 000 years of minds on this topic, and to dismiss it would. It would be like people don't dismiss the bible, they don't dismiss the torah, they don't dismiss other things, these documents, the past. Why do you blow that off? Why would you do that? Because it's not convenient. And I was thinking man, they really got it and they practiced it on the experiments over to and the fact that you don't, we would.

Speaker 1: 37:33

We've been sold this lie. This is one of the things I wanted to deprogram that our mind isn't as important as the physical, because it is. It is, it controls all of it, that's right. And it controls your perception, and that's right. I mean, we won't go down the healthcare problems of how that's not a hundred percent covered and why it costs a billion dollars to go see a therapist. Let's just leave that one off the table for now.

Speaker 1: 37:55

But the but. The idea is that taking care of your mind and how you think and how you breathe and how you set yourself as real physiological things that were wired to hundreds of thousands of years before we were who we are today, when, when it was so cool to find one avocado a month that wasn't rotted right, like, and if you found it up North, it wasn't avocado, that's actually a turd, probably. But I guess my point is like. I've had an awakening on on the idea of being open to, like the, the kind of spoon fed shit you've been given throughout your life, that this is just the way it is Like, is it, though?

Speaker 2: 38:34

So exactly what I love to is what really, what really got me fired up with breath is you talked about, you know, buddhism and a lot of the teachings that occur there. You go back to almost any major religion, whether it is. You know whether they call it chi prana, uh in the hebrew I slaughter this because I cannot pronounce hebrew, but it's a ruach right, which is literally in genesis the ruach, the spirit of god, which is also the breath of god, hovered over the waters. It's like the first thing. There are all these links between breath and spirituality, mindfulness, awareness. There is so much that is here and I love exploring that intersection because there are people that studied this for thousands of years.

Speaker 1: 39:16

I mean like it's like you think about the man hours and the true commitment, what they're studying Cause there was nothing else to do, people.

Speaker 2: 39:25

Yeah, and yet that's right. And yet they lived a life with more challenges, more adversity and yet oftentimes more self-reflection than we have today.

Speaker 1: 39:34

When I read like something in the 80s and like the 1200s. I'm like how Like someone miscalculated a birth date because there's no way in hell anyone lived that long.

Speaker 1: 39:43

It's amazing, it's amazing, it's like, unless they lived in the, in a, in a warm place where they had self-sustained food and no hurricanes, on an island and they just like, they're like happy, there's just enough people, enough sun. They didn't have sunburned, I don't know, but there's. There's no way, when I hear that that's true, like they just miscalculated, like down wrong at some point, because amazing stuff.

Speaker 2: 40:06

I mean, it really is when you think about amazing stuff.

Speaker 1: 40:08

I will wreck any meeting if given, I will wreck my own meeting. Well, just this is kind of who should get ahold of you Like, this is what I call the shameless plug time. But who do you love working with? Maybe not because they pay, but because you actually help them. So who's the who's the ideal client for you to?

Speaker 2: 40:25

get ahold of Loved ones entrepreneurs, founders, executives that are wanting to be able to handle more chaos, more more uncertainty, be able to drive with more direction and are also open to the self reflection to go beyond just. You know, it's a book and a theory and I'm going to go do a couple of things for a few days, but they're really looking, willing to self-examine. They want to get to the root of it. They want to shift the belief in the identity of who they are, because they know that that's going to be the most powerful way for them to move forward. That's who I love working with, and it is transformational when we work together.

Speaker 1: 41:01

Is it a? Is your program designed for? Like you know, a month, two years? Like what's the? What's the? A month, two years? Like what's the?

Speaker 2: 41:07

get them to head around what they're actually signing up for Six month commitment, so one-on-one it's a six month commitment and then we're typically I work with the goal. We're going to set our goals at six months. A lot of times I work with clients that are like, hey, I want to do this again. I want to do this again, not because they didn't get the results, but because they got so many results they want to re-up and keep moving forward. I've also built a series of different courses. I actually have as a gift on my website.

Speaker 2: 41:39

I built a breathwork series, an online course for overcoming imposter syndrome. Not that we've ever faced that and felt like we don't belong where we are right. But I talk about how that is just a normal growth path, right? If you aren't feeling imposter syndrome, you aren't stretching yourself. Let's growth path, right. If you, if you aren't feeling imposter syndrome, you you aren't stretching yourself, let's. Let's be real, let's be realistic, right? But then how do we get through that? And I incorporate breath and the science and the techniques around that. So that is available. You get two weeks free access on my site, that's. You know, that's another way as the courses to work with me as well.

Speaker 1: 42:05

That's great and I may take that, but I'm one who believes imposter syndrome is the healthy place to be, because you're now out of your boundaries and you're growing. That's right. You're looking back, you're reflecting back on yourself of what you thought you were and now you're in the space of saying something new. It puts you in that spot. That's the uncomfortable feeling of, but I like that Like. To me it's like okay, cool, I know I'm taking a step in direction of like. I also know from years of being a professional consulting prior to being an entrepreneur. I only have to know 1% more than you to be effective as a consultant. I'm just going to focus on the 1%. I know more and you're like we're great, we're aligned, let's work on this.

Speaker 2: 42:43

There is something. I think there's such a value. It's not just the 1%. I think what happens is right. This would be my theory. You're coming in unattached to the outcome. You're coming in unattached to all the history, all the patterns, all the BS that's been built up, that everyone's believed in. So you're coming in with a different perspective. With that, you know, even if it's only 1% more which I would challenge but you're coming in with that different perspective going. You know what I'm seeing, things that you guys can see but you just aren't aware of. Yeah, exactly, you're not willing to act on.

Speaker 1: 43:17

Yeah, I love that. Tell me about the future of this. So, and maybe within the coaching business itself, give some advice about if you're getting the coaching business do this, don't do that. Like you know I think we talked a little off camera on this I said, yeah, like I, people have asked me to coach. I don't think I'm super effective as I could be, but I also don't know if taking a coaching certification course is what I need either. And so give the perspective for coaches out there that are maybe in this space or there's, there's. They're trying to help people get better at life. What recommendation would you give to them as a business owner?

Speaker 2: 43:54

The most valuable. I'm going to give a shameless plug for Paz Breathwork because they did a phenomenal job, but I have taken a number of certification courses, but I've also taken the courses that were really focused on developing me, and the biggest bang for my buck, the biggest return, the biggest reward for myself and for my clients has been doing the work on myself, doing the meditation, doing the mindfulness, doing the breath work, examining myself. The more that I focus, regardless of the technique or regardless of the course that's being pitched, the more that I focused on my own growth rather than learning an external technique, that's brought the most value for everyone that I work with and for myself as well.

Speaker 1: 44:38

I think you're describing is very important, because I think sometimes it depends on what you're solving. Okay, so you know how to do marketing better, probably could follow some kind of template with an idea, but if you're working on yourself, the contextual data behind that is so complex there's no way there. There's probably a formula you can for discovery, but the actual value, past discovery and the method, they have to be somewhat tailored. It doesn't mean like you wouldn't have a cadence, have some kind of plan. Exactly it's me. It's hard to do a long-term digital course for change when it's hard to get the contextual piece. I think ai might be a nice kind of frustration to kind of end this kind of our segment here. Where would ai play to help with the contextual framing of what to do next? Because I think ai could get the context if you did a huge two-hour brain dump on it like a therapist, it could. Could be like thank you for sharing, boy. It sounds like your trauma.

Speaker 2: 45:32

Let's delve into the landscape of tapestry. I have done, by the way, I actually have. I use LLM AI as an interactive journal to just journal in my thoughts and have it capture awareness. Hey, have you thought about this? Have you thought about this?

Speaker 1: 45:44

It's good for a podcast.

Speaker 2: 46:00

Yeah, but you asked specifically about coaching With consulting. It's good for a podcast, the ability to come in as a I'll just share this as a little bit off topic of the question you asked, but I think that is the difference between the consultant and the coach. You talked about coming in like a hammer and a nail and I think a lot of times if you're, if you're getting someone who claims their coach but they're coming in with everything, you know everything's a nail and they're a hammer and they're going to pound them in, which, frankly, is how I started there. That was early on my growth path. It's not really serving you. So the ability of a coach to sit back, to be able to just to separate their own triggers and and viewpoint and beliefs and everything else out from you and give you a pure perspective, that's where you're really getting the value from coaching.

Speaker 1: 46:44

Yeah, and I and I like what you're doing there because you have a very specific thing that you're helping them work on to achieve something bigger. It's not the whole game plan, it's, it's additive, and some people can be like that's all. I needed to kind of focus Right, that might be all I needed to go there, and I think it's important because it is a business. It's hard Cause you know you're going to turn clients, cause you're going to help them, they're going to lose interest, the ones that stay with you long-term.

Speaker 1: 47:08

I'm sure at times you're like I'm glad they do this, but why? You're happy for it. You're like, wow, thank you, I can pay a mortgage this month because you're here, but sometimes you got to reflect back. So I think, as a coach, I think you do start off prescriptive, but I think, like you said, if you have the idea that I need to evolve this to my own version of the world, I think that's the way to go. The AI piece is interesting because I think, if you, I think AI in the future, if you give it enough contextual data and has enough clinical data or other things behind it or other stories that are like legitimate, it really could be a good coach by itself, you know.

Speaker 2: 47:45

I have. Like I said, I've used AI in an interactive journal format to be able to feed in information hey, what am I not thinking about here and using it as self-reflection to guide me. I don't know. I think there's just a power in a human element, though that gets missed in it, and I've noticed that there are some point where I'll just run. I'm like, yeah, you're just looping. At this point, you're totally. You know, I know what you're always guessing. Ai is just always guessing what the best answer is. But you're really guessing at this point. But there absolutely is, I think, the AI. I look at it both ways. I use AI as a tool and it's been incredible in accelerating my creativity, accelerating my impact, accelerating my ability to organize my thoughts, especially at, like you know, 11 o'clock at night, when no one else wants to engage in a deep conversation with me. I can go work on this. But it's also there's also an impact of AI in the world that we really need to be aware of, which is it is a lot of these.

Speaker 2: 48:42

You know, we talked about social media, we talked about these things that come up on our phone, and there's AI and machine learning algorithms behind that that are way ahead of where our mind is evolutionary, and so you know, understanding the impact we have and doubling down on the ability for us to focus our mind and calm our mind, I think, is going to be more important than ever. So we learn how to use AI properly, but we're also able to train our mind in a way that prevents us from just getting wiped out by all the areas where AI is being applied against us to grab our focus.

Speaker 1: 49:18

I, you know, as an entrepreneur, you come up with a billion business ideas and by the time one comes out of your mouth. For you non ADD people, we have given it some thought of maybe a few million iterations and it's. It's ahead of all the other shitty ones. So just be happy that we didn't dump the number 485 on the list or something Right. One I have, though, I think, is it you're, you're, I hear you and I'm like I mean, I still think this is a good idea. Is I just buy a cabin in the woods and be elegant, just make it nice, but but make it a detox house where you're like check your phones in here for the week or weekend. There's steam rooms in the bottom, there's like saunas, like there's a little hot tub or something, and there's books everywhere, and so just pick up any one of these and read. Like the whole point of the weekend is it's quiet here, there's no TVs, it is. There are no technologies here except enough to for you to cook and if there's an emergency right.

Speaker 2: 50:08

I love it because I totally geeked out. So my Christmas gift to myself the week after Christmas is I have read the Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis. Oh man, I love them.

Speaker 1: 50:17

That takes me back and for some reason One of the few books I ever read as a kid man, exactly, and those things.

Speaker 2: 50:24

they are so amazing. I loved them as a kid and I continue to refer back to lessons I learned of that. So week after Christmas, I'm like you know what I'm going to re? I'm going to reread these. So I got the books and I I did do Kindle. It was electronic, but I just sat down and went through all seven. It was like such a gift to be so focused and single-minded of. I'm just going to go read every single one of these and have some downtime here, and it was. It was fantastic. So I love, I love your detox cabin idea with with books and reading and no, no interruptions.

Speaker 1: 50:55

Yeah, let's be clear, it's all marketing. Just because it could be, it could be a shitty cabin in the wall, I'm like, no, it's detox, it's beautiful, it's all marketing. But my point was that the principle. I think people would sign up for that because people need it and I think, you know, one of these solar flares hits us. Oh man, we're going to get some downtime, so get some candles, people.

Speaker 2: 51:17

It is such a thing that we've got to be on guard against and learn how to focus our minds, because we're getting evolutionary onslaught with the amount of information that's coming in every single day. The people who succeed are the people who learn how to do it.

Speaker 1: 51:34

I'm going to do a show on what I believe is the next evolutionary step is money-driven. So those who can afford genetic mutation with bioengineering Bioengineering is not so much but genetic mutation where your actual genetics change where the kids coming now are. Are you a genetic peer too? Like, oh, yes, and so that we can have beautifully, like you know, like that will be something um I got to go.

Speaker 1: 51:57

You remember the countries exactly yeah, I don't, but I I don't. I mean, we're all in a simulation. Everyone's gonna hang out. Now if you look at it like like listen, if you're making a video game, this is how you would do it. You can't get off the island, you got to go there. It's going to be billions of years to develop the technology. I mean, if you're a nerd you're like hell yeah, this is it. Now Keanu Reeves is not saving the day. We can all agree on that. John, thank you for coming on today. I appreciate all the time.

Speaker 2: 52:27

Thanks so much for.

Speaker 1: 52:29

I'm going to put you in the periwinkle room. I'll be right back with you. Thank you, john, john Hall for like great conversation around. You know really what matters in life and how you get there, and you know he talked about being in an abusive or in a hard relationship. There's many people out there that are in them, I'm sure, and I and we didn't dive into that too much because I wanted to really get the conversation on where the value of what he learned from that. But that is a hard step for him. I'm sure it was not something that was easily overcomable overnight and I would have to guess some of those teachings and some of the things he does in his thing are from stemming from knowing what he needed to do to get through it, which gives him really good perspective on how to help you, whatever it is. You're in there because he's done something hard. So good for you, john, for doing that and developing this, and I really enjoyed the conversation. For those who've made it this far, thank you Listen.

Speaker 1: 53:17

Hit the follow button if you can on the Apple Spotify. It's the one thing I ask so you can be alerted, and if you want to come on the show, reach out to me on LinkedIn at Thomas LinkedIn. Slash in slash. Thomas Helfrich, get out there, go unleash your entrepreneur. Cut a tie on the way. Thank you for joining us on this episode of cut the tie. Let's stay connected. Please hit that follow button on Apple, spotify or YouTube and, if you're ready to advance your entrepreneurial journey even further, join our free community at facebookcom. Slash groups. Slash, cut the tie. Cut the tie to everything holding you back from success.